The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life. His Own.

by David Carr

Book Overview

From David Carr (1956-2015), the "undeniably brilliant and dogged journalist" (Entertainment Weekly) and author of the instant New York Times bestseller that the Chicago Sun-Times called "a compelling tale of drug abuse, despair, and, finally, hope."

Do we remember only the stories we can live with? The ones that make us look good in the rearview mirror? In The Night of the Gun, David Carr redefines memoir...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416541535
• ISBN13: 9781416541530
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

great read

this book was very interesting and a new (very journalistic) approach to an autobiography. I loved that we were able to follow him all the way through his recovery where most books just give you a vague epilogue. It was a little clinical and dry at times which is why i held off a star, but still very good.

Awesome

I loved it. I've read quite a few "memoirs" about addiction/recovery. I couldnt put this one down. We're all different i guess, in our reading tastes. That's what makes the world go round! Loved the grit and honesty. Loved his writing.

A frightening story

Anyone who has a relative or close friend who is either an alcoholic or a drug addict should read this book. Also, I think this book ahould be available to those who attend AA and/or NA meetings. It is a searing retelling of a man's descent into serious drug addiction and alcoholism. Along with that came female abuse, child neglect, various lost jobs, and more things that whould frighten anyone before they contemplate drugs, or overuse of alcohol. That the tale has somewhat of a happy ending is not completely due to the author, but to where he lived, his circumstances, helpful family members, friends and members of the legal community, and also the knowledge that what he was doing was being very bad for his children. It's difficult to believe that all of the things detailed in this book actually happened, but the author appears sincere and contrite. Read this book, but be warned in advance: it's not pretyy, but it is powerful.

Speak, Memory

"Sometimes the choice between sanity & chaos is a riddle" (p5) In a time when so many "memoirs" are unmasked as fiction at best, the premise of Carr's searing memoir, takes any such accusation head on. Do we remember only the stories we can live with? Paying heed to Dostoyevsky's deft observation, "man is bound to lie about himself" (Notes from the Underground), Carr goes on a journey back into the long night of his years as an addict to divine harsh truth from the figments of selective memory. Turning his investigative reporter skills unto himself, his aim is to cut through addiction's "self-induced Alzheimer's"(p. 12) to discern exactly what he did or did not do. Where Carr thought a friend pulled a gun on him one chemical fueled night, it turns out to be other way around. From a guy who never even thought he owned a gun. You may ask, what is the point of writing a memoir, besides vanity? Why air your dirty laundry in public? What sets this chronicle of addiction apart from the plethora of other's? As Carr himself almost cynically puts it, " recovery stories go down a very familiar track: I had a beer with friends. Then I shot dope in my neck. I got into trouble. I saw the error of my ways. I found Jesus or 12 Steps or Bhaktki yoga. Now everything is new again" (p. 177) Besides being exceptionally well written, what sets Carr's memoir apart is the intensity of his self searching & a willingness to accept what he finds. So how did David Carr go from Twin City's local Hunter S. Thompson to mainlining coke every 20 minutes inbetween crack hits? Or from lost cause to single parent raising twin daughters? Local cub reporter to NY Times staff writer? Or, from 14 year sobriety success story to binging alcoholic? During the course of his self investigation, Carr not only uncovers some very ugly truths about himself, he also shines a light on what finally inspired him to crawl out of the wreckage of himself. Throughout it all, Carr never lets himself off the hook, taking full responsibility for his actions, blaming no one but himself. While guilt is unavoidable, his narrative never falls into self pity. The reader, along with Carr comes to understand that the addict within never really goes away. He or she simply finds something else to latch onto. Whether it be sex, work or religion. That part of you is always there doing pushups in the basement, waiting for you to unlock the door. At the end, he comes to understand that memory is indeed a labyrinth with many twists, turns, & false ends. Not to mention, one with a hell of a Minotaur lurking in the shadows... From lower depth to precarious redemption, Carr's book is one of the most sincere & substantial memoirs of it's kind to come along in recent years. Damning, yet inspiring, it's a crash course in Honesty. Something one could say is in short supply nowadays.

David Carr turns the gun on himself -- and lives to tell the harrowing tale

"Let's say, for the sake of argument, that a guy threw himself under a crosstown bus and lived to tell the tale," David Carr writes. "Is that a book you'd like to read?" Good question. Indeed, it's the question that prospective readers of "The Night of the Gun", Carr's warts-and-all memoir, will have to consider --- because this is that book. Consider: A talented kid without much direction graduates from high school pot smoking to cocaine at college. He starts a career in journalism that has him reporting on police and government officials by day --- and freebasing cocaine at night. He hooks up with a woman who deals dope. Driving to see her, he's so wrecked he almost crashes into a station wagon filled with kids. He skids into a ditch, has to spend the night in jail, misses his girlfriend's birthday. When he finally shows up, he gives her what can't be bought in any store: a black eye and a broken rib. He introduces his girlfriend to crack. She gets pregnant. They become so thoroughly addicted that, just as her water is breaking, he's handing her a crack pipe. Their twin daughters are crack babies. He splits with his girlfriend, and, because he has a nice job, keeps the girls with him. This does not stop him from locking them in the car while he runs into a dealer's house to score. The gun: As he recalls it, he was so out of control that his best friend not only has to call the cops but wave a gun at him. His best friend remembers it another way --- as David's gun. In detox, his arms are so nasty that the staffers have him reach into a tub of detergent so they don't have to touch him. It takes a full month for the drug psychosis to wear off. And he does rehab four times before he finally gets clean. There are 300+ pages like that in "The Night of the Gun" --- it is a long downward spiral. Reading it, I thought of the Emmylou Harris lines: "One thing they don't tell you about the blues/When you got 'em/You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom/There ain't no end..." So, you may ask, what kept me reading? In part, because David Carr emerges from the darkness into a kind of radiance: a new wife, intact family, great job. And because, at the center of his redemption, is a reason a lot of guys can relate to: "Everything good and true about my life started on the day the twins became mine." And, in part, because I know David Carr. Like him a lot. Knew nothing about his past. And so was gobsmacked by every page. For those who do not traffic in New York media circles or read the paper of record, David Carr is the media columnist and sometime culture reporter for The New York Times. He's witty and gutsy and almost always fun to read --- when he's in the Times, I open it with actual enthusiasm. There's another, better reason I kept reading. I have known a number of people who became addicts. I don't know any now --- some died, some got clean, and those who didn't drifted far from my ambitious, middle-class circle. As a result, I so